Travel photos and journals from across Asia [1997-2025]
Nepal. It was a crazy idea from the start. An acquaintance had been there on some wild motorcycle ride “into thin air” in the Himalayas so I decided to follow in his footsteps, or wheel tracks to be more precise. The trip was booked and planned in April last year so I had plenty of…
We decided to stop in the Loei Palace Hotel for two nights since it had a big pool and was relatively luxurious. We’d been on the road a week and every night stayed somewhere different so needed a little down time. The town is a traffic clogged little place with tiny roads and too much…
I had read up on this place as it is one of the most popular national parks for Thais and somewhat of a pilgrimage to make the climb. Relatively unknown to foreigners, Phu Kradeung is a 1,300 meter high mount with a mesa spanning 60 square kilometers. There are no roads to the top and…
October is our month for road trips and it was time to find somewhere in Thailand we had yet to visit. Usually we head south due to our proximity to it but this time it would be a journey north into two provinces I had yet to visit; Phetchabun and Loei. Known for their mountainous…
A year after my first trip to Scotland it was time to return for another reunion. The journey north seemed to take forever in our bright blue rental but the sun was shining on arrival and we would be spending the next week or so at Ray’s place on the Burnton Farm in Laurencekirk. Gary…
I had my reservations about taking a minivan for the four hour journey north on hellish roads but there were few other options. Fortunately our driver was pretty good and took things at a safe pace which is extremely rare for an Asian minivan driver. The road snaked up into the mountains but the higher…
Da had her heart set on the sunset hot air balloon trip which was not cheap at $90 per person. I didn’t have much of a choice so we booked it and would be picked up later that afternoon. We were driven to a field on the outskirts of town where a Chinese company ran…
A free hotel shuttle took us into Vang Vieng the next morning and I knew I’d miss the Sanctuary as soon as we hit tourist central an hour later. Our accommodation in Vang Vieng was a riverside resort called Simon. Again the permanent miasma partially obscured what would have otherwise been an epic view but…
It was time to get out of the city and head north but before we got to Vang Vieng we decided to splash out and have a couple of nights on the largest lake in Laos at the Sanctuary Resort at Tha Heua. The three hour minivan ride was taken at typical Asian breakneck speed…
It had been around twenty years since I had ventured into Laos. Road trip season was upon us again and now seemed a good time as any to revisit the country and explore some new spots. Getting there was relatively easy with an early flight from Chumphon to Don Meuang, Bangkok and a midday one…
I’d never been to a MotoGP race before but have been following the sport for years. Thought I’d finally book it up and go before Valentino Rossi retires, which can’t be long now, I’d also promised the kids I would take them. Booked the grandstand tickets through the official motogp.com website back in June, they…
Soon it was time to get on the road again and into our next province. I wanted to head into the relatively unexplored Satun province but democracy overruled me and the majority voted for Krabi since half of our party had never been there. Krabi The first thing you notice when travelling from a non-touristy…
Following a summer in the UK I was itching to get back on the road in Asia and sniff out some of those undiscovered spots in southern Thailand once again. This was to be a family trip, however, with a group of eight in total with differing agendas, so I had to go with the…
Four pals who met in the late nineties in Hua Hin decided to have a reunion in Scotland this summer. It was a ten hour drive north in Jonny’s silver bat-mobile to a wee village called Laurencekirk halfway between Dundee and Aberdeen. Our base for the next week was a stone cottage on a little…
Our trip was nearing its end so we had to head back south, breaking the journey in Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi on the way. Our accommodation in K-town, the R.S. Hotel, was a standard business type affair but the kids wanted a pool. I was starting to get an ear infection from swimming in brown rivers!…